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a leaf sprouts in Georgia

Hi everyone, I'm kokuu (empty sky), and very thankful to have found this group. I've been reading about Buddhism and Zen for a little over a year, and have been sitting on my own for about the same amount of time.

Currently my practice is about exploring the heartbeat. I notice that if I start with breath counting, somewhere along the 10 minute mark, my heartbeat becomes all consuming, like a drumbeat, and I just follow it. The breath counting falls away, and there is a total body experience. Afterwards, I tend to see that rhythm and heartbeat everywhere. (Hope that makes sense, very difficult to put into words!)

Master Dogen's teaching on the hearbeat, I believe, would be to just let the heartbeat beat. Until it stops beating.

In the Shikantaza practice, we do not focus on any one item or object when sitting Zazen, and we are expansive and seeking nothing particular as a special state. Perhaps we might say that "everything and nothing" is our object. Good Zazen and bad Zazen ... is all good Zazen. However, it is perfectly fine to do something like that for the first few minutes in our Practice.

Hi kokuu! and hello to everyone else new to the forum in the past several days. I haven't been the best on keeping up with welcomes lately.

I'm interested in the heartbeats. Did you learn that technique or has it come along naturally in your practice? The reason I'm asking is because I heard some teaching about this on Zencast which is actually more Vipassana oriented (Insight Meditation, Theravada).

I like listening to their Dharma talks too, but the meditation is different. Just wondering how the heartbeat focus started with you. Again, welcome.

Just thought, the river that runs past my house, the Chattahoochee, rumbles down hill to your city of Columbus on the way to the Gulf of Mexico. I have been to the source of this river up in north Georgia in my early days of trout fishing (catch and release) as well as to the bay in which it ends its journey. I have a deep sense of connection with this river and find myself using it for meditation on many occasions. Funny piece, this spiring I went with one of the park rangers to "investigate" a sighting of an alligator down from my home. I was surprised to find an 8 foot gator swimming by the bridge over a major highway here in north Atlanta. Stumpy has since disappeared...conjecture is he headed south to your neck of the woods. There must be a koan hidden within all this. If an alligator snaps in north Atlanta....
DAvid aka PapaDoc

I'm interested in your practice. I have found that when I'm sitting absolutely still, my heartbeat becomes prominent in my awareness, because it is the only physical activity I'm consciously experiencing. So the practice seems quite natural.